Everything will turn out as you wish

Just trust me, oh trust me

If you give it your all

...

Needless worries only torment you

Tension will disappear

Yoohyeon couldn’t sleep, but that was nothing new. The ceiling was such a familiar sight… especially in the darkness. The way the shadows seeped from the corners of the room, the way the faint light from the street feathered through the blinds. It was like she and the ceiling were old friends. Nearly every night they sat in one another's presence and Yoohyeon would let her thoughts float — drift upward into the infinite gray.

Sometimes she sent cohesive thoughts, worries voiced out in her head. Sometimes her mind was filled with nothing but murky grayness fit to match shadows above her. At the end of the day it didn’t matter what the space between her ears was like, the ceiling accepted everything. It mercifully made no judgments — a trait impossible to find in humans. However, it also gave her no answers.

How many hours had she spent like this? She waited for a beat. No reply. Typical. Attempting to add the hours she figured it must aggregate to many months. After all, it had been years and the problem hadn’t gone away. Well, to be fair, it hadn’t really gotten worse but it sure as hell hadn’t improved. Even after the meds. Shifting around a bit she wondered if she should just grab the sleeping pills. This is what they were for, right? The special mixture of chemicals the doctor had told her would fix her, never mind the waking drowsiness or the headaches.

Sitting up, Yoohyeon gave in and decided to fish her medicine out from the back of the bathroom cupboard. Just for tonight. She didn’t want to take it too often for now or the side effects might interfere with her ability to perform during media promotions. 

She quietly plodded into the hall taking care not to kick anything that had been left on the floor. The bathroom wasn’t far away and with any luck she’d soon be back in her bed on her way to a dreamless slumber. Pills, pills, pills. Where were they? One hand held her phone’s flashlight up and the other poked through the various containers. An apartment full of idols, be they male or female, was not ever going to be a place light on cosmetics.

After a few moments of picking up and putting down and turning and rearranging she finally found them. Twisting off the child-proof cap, she was about to shake a capsule into her hand when she heard a soft thud followed by a grunt. 

Curious, Yoohyeon poked her head out of the bathroom and saw a dim blue light coming from the common area. How had she missed that? Medicine long forgotten on the counter, Yoohyeon put on her sleuthing cap and became an investigator. It could be a burglar, she thought to herself, or maybe a stalker who’d found their address, or it could be… 

“Minji?” Yoohyeon squinted her eyes, not in derision, but in confusion. The older girl was draped limply across the couch, phone in hand, looking intently at the screen. 

“Oh!” Minji looked surprised and her tone reflected it, she’d been far too loud. Bashfully she amended herself. “I mean, ‘oh’,” she whispered now, cringing a bit at her earlier blunder. 

“What are you doing up? Aren’t you tired?” Yoohyeon was immediately worried. She knew Minji had a steady routine. Ever the picture of perfection, Minji never went to bed too late and never got up too early. 

“Did I wake you up? I didn’t think dropping my phone would be so loud since I cushioned it with my face… sorry.” Minji looked apologetic and her sincere expression almost made Yoohyeon forget that she hadn’t answered her question. 

Almost. 

“I was already up, but what are you doing?” Yoohyeon raised an inquisitive eyebrow and took a seat on the arm of the couch, just by Minji’s head. She wasn’t going to let her talk her way around this. 

“Oh you know, just wasting time.” Minji’s face gave nothing away, with the exception of holding Yoohyeon’s gaze too directly by a second. 

“At…” Yoohyeon checked her phone quickly. “3:42 in the morning?” Yoohyeon knew better. She knew Minji better. Her confusion that had melted into concern was now melting into exasperation. They’d known each other for so many years now, they were mending their friendship, and Yoohyeon thought (or at least chose to believe) that they were beyond hiding things from each other. 

“Well, I was having a bit of trouble sleeping, which like, is totally weird for me. So I decided maybe I should get up and eat something,” the older girl motioned at a glass of juice on the table. “But then I couldn’t decide what to eat so I just grabbed something to drink instead.”  The girl carried on like she was being timed. Words kept pouring out of and pooling in Yoohyeon’s brain. “I almost woke Bora up too, these floors are kind of creaky. It’s weird how you never notice some sounds until you’re trying to be quiet.” 

Despite herself Yoohyeon found her eyes glazing over. This was so weird. Minji usually wasn’t like this. Yoohyeon sat down on the floor, leaning her back against the armrest, since she thought she might have to listen to this rambling for a while. Supporting her head in her hands she prepared herself. 

“I mean, I know I’m no ninja or anything but I really expected to be a little more stealthy, and then, then! Then I nearly tripped over some clothes that one of the girls left in the hall. Honestly I’ve let it go since it’s not too bad for the most part, but I should probably have a talk with everyone about leaving stuff in high traffic areas.”

Yoohyeon let out a deep breath. “Minji.”

“Or do you think that’s too strict? I think maybe it’s a little harsh since I know we just recently finished an MV shoot and were in meetings all day coordinating promotions…”

“Minji.” Yoohyeon raised her voice a bit.

“I think I’ll wait a bit until our promotions schedule starts up and if there’s still stuff all over the floor then I’ll give everyone a talk. Speaking of… wait. Did I ever ask why you were up this late?”

“Minji.” Yoohyeon repeated with a slight sternness. 

“Yeah?”

“What are you really doing up?”

The beautiful girl went still as a statue. The rumbling of a failing air conditioner filed the space between them. “What are you doing up?”

“Really? I asked first anyway.” Yoohyeon had never encountered this kind of stubbornness from her before. Was it personal? Too personal to tell your closest friend?

“It’s nothing Yoo. Really. I was just up messing around on my phone and I didn’t want the light to wake up Bora.” 

Yoohyeon turned a bit so she could look at Minji. The girl was too good an actress to tell if she was lying based on her voice alone. Even looking at her face Yoohyeon could only sometimes tell, and Yoohyeon looked at Minji’s face a lot. In the dark it was harder. A lot harder. The harsh light of Minji’s phone cast strange shadows across her face as she stared at it, holding it aloft with both hands. 

Yoohyeon nudged closer, twisting her back around and tilting her head so it almost touched Minji’s shoulder. Her gaze then lifted upward, following Minji’s line of sight. 

“So this is what’s been keeping you up.” Yoohyeon’s voice was gentle, but Minji, who hadn’t noticed her move, jumped a bit and quickly hid the screen against her chest. 

Minji was silent for a while, as if she was deciding how much Yoohyeon had seen. “And what if it has?” Her voice wasn’t challenging, it wavered, coming out more in a whisper than in the clear, light tone her voice usually took.

“Well. It’s been like a week since the MV was released. Have you been refreshing the view count all night since then?”

Minji bit her lip. She didn’t need to say anything after that for Yoohyeon to recognize the guilty admission. 

“Oh, Minji. You know you’ve got to sleep some time.” 

“I know, I get it. I do sleep. It’s just. I can’t help…” Minji pursed her lips and turned her head into the back of the couch away from Yoohyeon. 

Yoohyeon knew Minji was hyper dedicated, concerned about things beyond the group’s control, and determined to the point where work was waged like war. She had just never expected that dedication to manifest itself like this — staying up for days to keep track of how well a video was doing? How could that be helpful?

“Minji.” Yoohyeon didn’t know what to say, how to make her feel better. God forbid she start talking and somehow make the situation worse. “I. I think I understand, but watching the numbers isn’t going to bring more.” 

“I know, I know.” Her muffled voice made Yoohyeon strain to make out words, and she found she had to inch even closer to hear. “It’s just…”

“Mmmh?”

“Yoo. This one. This is our best chance at making it big.” 

“Well. It seems to be doing pretty well so far, if that’s what you mean.” Yoohyeon didn’t really understand where the exhausted girl next to her intended to go with this. 

Minji shut her eyes and let out a shaky breath. “The CEO. I heard him a few weeks ago saying to investors that this comeback would be the one… and if it wasn’t then they could finally withdraw support. So I think this is our best chance, our last best chance.” 

Yoohyeon felt the air go out of her lungs. Drawing in another breath seemed not to fill them with air, but a cold and stale concoction of dread. “Oh.”

“I… couldn’t bring myself to tell the others.” Minji’s voice wavered, strained and small from the effort required to control her volume. “But it seems like this could be the end of the road.”

After a moment Minji joined Yoohyeon on the floor, perhaps feeling too small and scared to continue laying, limbs sprawled, instead needing to ball herself up. They sat for a few moments in silence, knees tucked to their chests, and Yoohyeon let the words sink in. 

“Well, .” Yoohyeon supplied elegantly, her fingers clenching to form a fist.

“Yeah.”

The two sat in silence, and Yoohyeon let the information settle in her mind. Or at least she tried. So, ostensibly, this was their last chance at seeing real monetary success. It was no secret in the company that their modest popularity only really allowed them to break even, with their advertisement deals being the only things really putting them over the line. They just didn’t make all that much money.  

Yoohyeon wondered if the reason why this news was such a shock was because Dreamcatcher had been like that since almost the very beginning. They’d always eked by with incredibly slim profit margins. It had been, what, four -- almost five years since Dreamcatcher had begun, seven if she counted Minx. Nearly ten if she included how long they’d trained for. That was already beyond the average life expectancy for even popular girl groups.

Had they exceeded their ‘best by’ date?

Yoohyeon took a deep breath. She’d been down this rabbit hole before. They all had -- many times over. It kind of came with the territory, and that’s why she knew that, at the end of the day it did no one any good, least of all herself. She forced her mind away from all that could go wrong, and closed her eyes, listing and repeating numbers out of order in her head to keep her mind from straying. 

“The MV is already doing the best out of all the rest.” She was going to list every point that was even remotely positive. 

     “We get invited to music shows regularly now.”

          “Siyeon keeps getting solo work.”

               “Our numbers are still trending upward across the board.”

                    “We’ve avoided controversy.”

                         “We’re still fairly young.”

Yoohyeon stopped thinking out loud when Minji’s head came to rest on her shoulder.

“Thank you.” Even though it was slight, Yoohyeon felt Minji’s body relax a bit. Maybe she was feeling better -- hopefully she was feeling better. Maybe she was just giving into her exhaustion… Yoohyeon couldn’t really say for certain. Either way was fine for now.

“No problem.” Yoohyeon slowly let her head lean on Minji’s. Maybe they would be disbanded, maybe they would stay together. Maybe they would fade into obscurity, maybe they would find success. Maybe she would eat ramyeon tomorrow, or maybe she’d have kimbap. Maybe one day she’d finally be able to tell Minji how she felt… and maybe the two fell asleep, heads resting against each other, as they sat on the floor.

***

Another familiar sight. Cheering crowds. Fans stood outside the floor-to-ceiling windows of the recording studio and cheered their support. Men and women alike had brought signs and cameras which they trained on the girls as they completed small games and made light conversation with the hosts. This time the producers had wired some speakers to the outside, letting the masses hear what was being said. It was weird handing a semi-live audience, but Yoohyeon decided she liked it. 

There was just one problem with these types of promotions. As much as they attempted to ‘be themselves’ it was impossible to not want to show Dreamcatcher at it’s best while the red recording light was on. Balancing their conduct between what was normal and what was expected always weighed heavy on their minds. Too happy and they’d be considered ‘fake’. Not happy enough and they’d be considered ‘lazy’. The sweet spot, the coveted bullseye that every group aimed for, included sincerity, energy and quirkiness, all in flux. If the ingredients were out of proportion Yoohyeon felt like it was game over. Gg. 

On top of this, she had the added consideration of not appearing to play favorites. In the beginning Yoohyeon had unintentionally fallen into patterns that fans had picked up on -- routinely being too close to the same member. This in itself wasn’t the worst, other groups did it and people found it endearing, but if you happened to actually harbor feelings beyond friendship and didn’t want people looking too close, then that kind of conduct probably wasn’t the smartest thing to keep up. Despite being more careful nowadays, sometimes she couldn’t help herself. Even as she clung to Yubin, arms intertwined, she kept Minji in the corner of her eye. 

Nowhere in the leader’s countenance was the pain or stress of that morning. It was like it had never been there at all and Yoohyeon was tempted to wonder if she’d somehow imagined the whole encounter. Seeing such control on display was equal parts inspiring and worrying. On one hand it was evidence of Minji’s innate ability to compartmentalize and prioritize, on the other hand it gave Yoohyeon reason to believe that she might be the only other person Minji had told, which meant she was holding back from everyone else. Yoohyeon sighed loud enough to get a strange look from Yubin.

“Sorry.” Yoohyeon squeezed her arm a bit around Yubin as she muttered her apology.

Th